For a long time, Emma did not get jokes. She was cheerful and smiley and always full of giggles and even belly laughs; but jokes, particularly ironic or sarcastic jokes, typically went right over her head. Peter used to privately speculate that she had been born without a sense of humor, a joke that she definitely would not have gotten.
Somewhere during middle school this changed. Suddenly, she was catching on to her dad’s sense of humor. She was laughing along now as he joked at the dinner table and contributing jokes of her own. As proof of the transformation, Peter began calling her Emma 2.0 - and she got it!
A couple of years ago, a colleague of Peter’s introduced our family to the comedy of Jim Gaffigan and Emma found her comic muse. She loved his routines and shared them with her friends, who were soon punctuating many of their conversations with the Hot Pocket jingle. She had memorized several of her favorite routines and, as was characteristic, could deliver them flawlessly. Whenever we wanted some dinnertime entertainment, we’d mention a routine and let her roll. I admired and enjoyed this skill. I would occasionally try to share a favorite routine with a friend, but would always mess up the timing, skip an important sequence, or blow the punch line. So I learned to call in Emma to do the job. “Hey Emm, tell Mrs. P. the fruitcake joke.” And off she’d go.
Here are links to a couple of Emma's favorites:
The fruitcake routine is about 4:18 into this clip
This is the Hot Pocket routine . Emma's favorite part was the restaurant sequence that goes from about 1:08 to 1:53. Emma performed both of these for us all the time, and I don't think I'll ever hear them without thinking of her performing them.
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